dropdb

Name

Synopsis

Description

dropdb destroys an existing
PostgreSQL database. The user
who executes this command must be a database superuser or the
owner of the database.

dropdb is a wrapper around
the SQL command DROP DATABASE. There is no effective
difference between dropping databases via this utility and via
other methods for accessing the server.

Options

dropdb accepts the following
command-line arguments:

dbname

Specifies the name of the database to be removed.

-e--echo

Echo the commands that dropdb generates and sends to the
server.

-i--interactive

Issues a verification prompt before doing anything
destructive.

-V--version

Print the dropdb
version and exit.

--if-exists

Do not throw an error if the database does not exist. A
notice is issued in this case.

-?--help

Show help about dropdb
command line arguments, and exit.

dropdb also accepts the
following command-line arguments for connection parameters:

-h host--host=host

Specifies the host name of the machine on which the
server is running. If the value begins with a slash, it is
used as the directory for the Unix domain socket.

-p port--port=port

Specifies the TCP port or local Unix domain socket file
extension on which the server is listening for
connections.

-U username--username=username

User name to connect as.

-w--no-password

Never issue a password prompt. If the server requires
password authentication and a password is not available by
other means such as a .pgpass
file, the connection attempt will fail. This option can be
useful in batch jobs and scripts where no user is present
to enter a password.

-W--password

Force dropdb to prompt
for a password before connecting to a database.

This option is never essential, since dropdb will automatically prompt for a
password if the server demands password authentication.
However, dropdb will waste
a connection attempt finding out that the server wants a
password. In some cases it is worth typing -W to avoid the extra connection attempt.

--maintenance-db=dbname

Specifies the name of the database to connect to in
order to drop the target database. If not specified, the
postgres database will be used; if
that does not exist (or is the database being dropped),
template1 will be used.

Environment

PGHOSTPGPORTPGUSER

Default connection parameters

This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the
environment variables supported by libpq (see Section 31.14).

Diagnostics

In case of difficulty, see DROP DATABASE and psql for
discussions of potential problems and error messages. The
database server must be running at the targeted host. Also, any
default connection settings and environment variables used by the
libpq front-end library will
apply.

Examples

To destroy the database demo on the
default database server:

$ dropdb demo

To destroy the database demo using
the server on host eden, port 5000, with
verification and a peek at the underlying command:

See Also

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